Oooohhh Pretty Lights!!!

So I'm sitting in another one of my parents' chinese association dinner thingies and i noticed the chandelier sitting above my head. I thought, hm I wonder what makes them so shiny? So I began thinking about the individual parts of the chandelier. First would be the lights. These are probably just ordinary lights. Nothing really special. However, what make them so brilliant are the large number of crystals surrounding the lights. Because the bulbs give off light in all directions, light hits most of the inner side of the crystals. This in turn, refracts the light inward and bends it in different angles. Because of the large number of crystals, this results in many beams of light going out and meeting at your eye. As you walk around the chandelier, the lights seem to glimmer in and out. This is because as you move about, different light beams reflecting off of different crystals hit your eyes. In this way, the lights look as if they are changing. Another ceiling mount that also creates an interesting effect is the disco ball. This is really just a sphere covered in mirrors and placed in a radial pattern so that any light that hits it is reflected off the mirrors in a even design. Fascinating how things with such simple designs can be so pretty, no?

Like thAt Sort of thing would Even woRk

Today's post comes after a watching a series of Star Wars movies. In the movies, they used several different types of lasers as weaponry. This includes laser blasters and light sabers. However, these things are not yet possible in our world. For example, the laser blaster. According to the movie, a rifle sized machine is able to produce a short blast of light that burns and injures on contact. However, today, in order to create a laser that has any potential for a weapon, a huge room worth of machines and energy is required to concentrate the light to a point where it can cut through things. Not very efficient for shooting your enemies. Of course there is the alternative, the almighty light saber. Consisting of light passing through two crystals, the light saber has the ability to cut through nearly anything, including several feet of reinforced steel doors. It looks like these blades melt and burn things when they come in contact with things like metal and flesh. However, there is several flaws with the light sabers. If they are truly made of light or lasers, then the saber would go on infinitely; they would not stop at any particular distance to make a wield-able weapon, but rather continue on like a flashlight. That would be a very terrifying weapon. Secondly, if they have enough concentrated energy to burn things on contact and melt through steel, then the radiant heat given off by the saber would probably give major burns to the jedi. This would probably be a very bad thing if you were going up against a horde of storm troopers.

Catching and Arrow

I am obligated to warn any viewers to never attempt this trick at home or any other place. It is real and legitimate and done by trained professionals. Please do not attempt to replicate in any way, shape, or form.


Recently I watched the movie "Blade: Trinity" and in one part of the movie, a character spins around and catches an arrow...bare-handed. Okay so maybe it didn't count because the character was actually a supervillain vampire and was in his demon-like form, but it was still really cool. Upon seeing this feat, I remembered a clip I once saw of a man really catching an arrow with his bare hand. According to the information I could glean off the clip, the archer was standing 75 feet away and said that the arrow was traveling at a velocity of a little over 100 mph. That means that it took approximately half a second for the arrow to reach the target. More incredible is that fact that Terry (the man catching the arrow) actually did...catch the arrow! Now he says that he uses the sound of the arrow leaving the bow string in order to catch it because he cannot see it. Using the speed of sound in air as being 1130 ft/s that means that he had only .44 seconds to react to the release of the bow string during the part when he catches it blindfolded. By any standards, this is an amazing feat.

I feel that I am obligated to once again warn that this was done by a professional and should not be attempted at home or anywhere else.